Sin Devil Trigger

The or SDT, referred to as the Majin Form in the context of Devil May Cry 2, is a special second Devil Trigger form.

Appearance
The Majin Form's appearance in Devil May Cry 2 resembles Dante's previous transformation into Sparda, but more bestial. The head is surrounded by large ram-like horns with a second smaller set extending from the top. It is shown to have reptilian feet and four bat-like wings which are darker than the body. Dante wields a pair of bright red retractable spikes in his forearms, similar to the demonic needles used by Mundus.

In Devil May Cry 5, Dante's Sin Devil Trigger has a somewhat similar appearance. It has two pairs of wings, and the horns on top of the head are now longer. The chest and head glow with incandescent orange in a similar manner to Berial, and the whole body is wreathed in demonic flames. The solid parts of the body seem to be a combination of metal and black demonic stone: any areas of exposed "skin" are covered in square scales.

Vergil's enhanced Devil Trigger has a more reptilian look, holding its wings folded down in a similar manner to the tails of Vergil's coat. Its glow is ice-blue with swirling cold mist surrounding it, and it possesses twin blue arm-mounted blades. A thick tail with a barbed tip extends from between its shoulders. The head's overall shape resembles a traditional samurai helmet, with the addition of two thick tubes to the sides that vent energy in a manner resembling exhausts.

Devil May Cry 2
The story in-game and associated materials do not mention the form at all, with the only context for what it actually is coming from later interviews with Hideaki Itsuno. He stated that the move was intended to show Dante unleashing the full power of his true demon form.

Devil May Cry 5
During the incursion of the Qliphoth in Red Grave City, Dante was defeated by Urizen and the Rebellion's blade shattered in the battle. After V located Dante and gave him Sparda, the demon hunter journeyed to the ruins of his old family home.

Contemplating a photograph of his family, Dante pondered why Sparda had given him the Rebellion, recalling how he had once awakened his potential when Vergil stabbed him through the chest with the sword. He considered that, if Yamato was the sword that divides, Rebellion was perhaps the inverse. Much to Griffon's horror, he decided to test this theory by thrusting the broken hilt of Rebellion into his stomach.

Through this he fused the remains of Rebellion, the sword Sparda and possibly his own powers. By doing so he unlocked his true potential, a devil form powerful enough to confront the mighty Demon King. On confronting Urizen, he called the Devil Sword Dante into existence in his hand, and thereafter added it to his arsenal when in human form.

Nico's report on Sin Devil Trigger Dante states that there is "no telling" how much power Dante has in this state, speculating that he may even be more powerful than Sparda himself. In her report on Devil Sword Dante she states she isn't sure if Dante used his own powers or those inherent to Rebellion to create the new weapon.

When Dante finally faced Vergil in combat, the latter also possessed a more powerful Devil Form, which Nico speculated was a consequence of "his time bein' Urizen."

Devil May Cry 2
The form is not documented in any version of the game's manual, seemingly intended as a secret for the player to discover. It is activated if Dante uses his Devil Trigger while at less than 10% health (ie, when the remaining health in the bar has turned red). Once the form has been activated, it cannot be manually cancelled: Dante stays transformed until the Devil Trigger gauge is completely depleted. It restores health just like the normal Devil Trigger. While in this form, Dante is invulnerable: he does not take damage, his attacks cannot be interrupted, and he does not flinch when hit.

In terms of combat, Dante in this form possesses much faster movement speed, and has enhanced physical strength. He can fly much like with the Aerial Heart. His attacks in this state are based on demonic powers and very different, using red wrist-mounted spikes for his melee attacks and throwing red fireballs as his ranged attack. The form ignores Dante's normal equipment: his equipped weapons and Amulet components have no effect on this capabilities.

While it is active, the Devil Trigger gauge constantly drains as normal, but in addition using any of its attacks will drain a set amount of the gauge. Its basic moves drain for each button press, and spinning moves for each rotation. The most economical use of the form is simply spamming fireballs, as these deal catastrophic damage to enemies while having a fairly reasonable DT gauge cost: it is easy to throw fifteen or more in a single use, more than any boss in the game can withstand.

Dante can also expend all of his remaining DT energy to create either an enormous area-of-effect shockwave, or a ray of energy to deal heavy, concentrated damage. These are actually fairly mediocre uses of the mode given how much damage the regular moves do: they are best employed as finishers at the end of activating it.

Devil May Cry 5
The Sin Devil Trigger bar is added above the regular DT bar after Devil Sword Dante is acquired, even if Dante has one of his other swords equipped. It fills slightly when Dante takes damage, but is not filled by taunts or stylish combat like the regular DT gauge. The main method of filling it is using the move Accumulate, which transfers power from the regular DT gauge to the SDT gauge. It takes 12 bars of the DT gauge to fill the SDT gauge. A distinctive sound effect is heard when the SDT gauge is filled: it is important to pay attention to this, since the command for using SDT is the same as the command for filling the gauge. Charging the gauge does not have an associated animation, and the player can do it while performing other actions.

It takes a short time to activate SDT, indicated by the gauge filling outwards from the middle: the move then activates when the button is released. A bestial roar can be heard when the move is ready and Dante's SDT demon form will briefly appear over him. As with Accumulate, Dante can perform other moves while SDT is being readied or ready. The player can release the button to stop filling the bar at any time with no consequence, but once it is filled there is no way to cancel it in-game and the player is committed to using SDT. This can be circumvented by pausing the game, letting go of the DT button, and resuming.

Once activated, there is normally a short animation of Devil Sword Dante impaling Dante though the chest, during which Dante cannot take damage: this ends with an explosion which will deal damage to all enemies nearby. Health is not restored by SDT, but Dante does gain so-called "super armor" in this state, meaning his attacks cannot be interrupted, he cannot be staggered or knocked down, and he takes drastically reduced damage from enemy attacks.

SDT removes access to Dante's normal weapons and Styles, instead having its own moveset with a regular sword combo that ends with a gigantic 360-degree sword sweep, a homing "Stinger" which functions like Alastor or Nevan's Vortex, a high-damage fireball attack (representing Ebony/Ombra), a rapid-fire laser bolt attack (representing Ivory/Luce), a descending ground-pound AoE attack like a much more powerful version of Balrog's Cruiser Dive which is more reminiscent of Ifrit's Inferno, and a unique grapple attack which will deal enormous damage if an enemy is held for long enough. Its ultimate move, Judgement, unleashes a flurry of sword moves that hit every enemy in the current area, terminating in a massive explosion. This move will instantly end SDT once it concludes, but cannot be interrupted once started even if the SDT gauge expires, so is a good way to finish off a use of SDT.

The SDT form also has the ability to dodge, and a Trickster-like teleport move. Rather than walking, it glides along the ground: it also has Air Raid, allowing the player to press jump to have Dante hover in mid-air at his current altitude. Unlike prior versions of Air Raid, SDT's version allows Dante access to all of his normal attacks.

The bar normally starts to deplete as soon as the animation of Dante being impaled concludes, but at SSS style rank the animation is skipped, Dante simply changing forms like the normal Devil Trigger, and the bar does not start to deplete for five seconds. When the SDT bar is fully depleted, Dante will drop to the ground on one knee, and is unable to act and vulnerable for a short time.

Normally, the player cannot interrupt SDT once activated. By purchasing the ability "Quadruple S" an exception is created: if the player enters SDT at SSS rank and is still in the 5-second period where the SDT bar does not deplete (during which the border of the SDT bar will glow white), they can manually cancel out of SDT mode and retain their full SDT bar. Leaving SDT mode this way does not result in the usual short period of vulnerability for Dante.

Moveset
Devil May Cry 2= Devil May Cry 5=

Development
The Devil May Cry 2 form was treated as a secret in-game and had no documented name: neither was an official name provided for any of its moves. but in Devil May Cry 2 Art Collection, the "真魔人モード" from Japanese and the "Ultimate Devil" from English, both are explicitly mentioned. The Devil May Cry 2 strategy guide by Bradygames was the only official source of an English name, calling it the "Super Morph." Fans instead dubbed it the "Desperate Devil Trigger" or DDT, based on the criteria for activating it, and this was the most commonly used name in the fandom for a significant period.

At some point prior to the release of Devil May Cry 4 the English site for the Devil May Cry series, when describing Devil May Cry 2, referred to it as the "Majin Form." Despite being a result of poor translation ("Majin" being the name for the normal Devil Trigger forms in Japanese), this has stuck as the official English name, being used in translations of later interviews.

Hideaki Itsuno would later speak of his desire to iterate on the Majin Form. According to him, he liked the idea of Dante unleashing his full power to enter a more powerful Devil Trigger state that reflected his demonic nature on a conceptual level, but accepted that in DMC 2 it had been implemented in such a way that most players were unaware it even existed.

Itsuno's team worked on a "Double Devil Trigger" for Dante early in the development of Devil May Cry 4. This form's name was officially translated as "Ultimate Devil Trigger" in interview text, though it is often known by the fan nickname "Perfect Devil Trigger."

According to the information translated from the Devil May Cry 4 artbook, the Ultimate Devil Trigger's power would have been greater than that of the Dark Knight Sparda. This, in turn, was said to cause Dante to be nearly impossible to defeat. However, this form would be double-edged, due to the fact that Dante could eventually lose his humanity and sanity and become a feral being. It is unclear if there would have been some kind of in-game mechanic related to this, or if it was simply backstory fluff.

According to the illustration of Dante's Ultimate Devil Trigger, Dante's wings unfurl and grow much longer, with Rebellion becoming a tail. His body becomes almost entirely black, save for some red, glowing cracks in the chest, hands, tail, and inner wings. No other abilities were described.

The Ultimate Devil Trigger was eventually abandoned due to time constraints, and it is not clear if work on it ever proceeded beyond concept art and basic story outlines. However, with the start of work on Devil May Cry 5, Itsuno was able to resurrect the idea and fully realize it.

Trivia

 * "Shin Majin" is also translated into English as "true form" in several parts of Devil Mary Cry 5's descriptive text for Dante's SDT form and Vergil's enhanced Devil Trigger form.

Forma majin